Sunday marked Injured Workers Day. 

Injured Workers Day is about coming together, advocating for change, and showing solidarity with injured workers and their loved ones.

Every workplace should be safe , and no worker should be injured on the job. We should never accept that workplace injuries are inevitable, and that accidents happen.

The theme for Injured Workers Day is When WorkCover Doesn’t Work.

This is, of course, a reference to the ‘Modernisation’ of the scheme, brought in by the Allan Labor Government last year after the scheme nearly collapsed due to underfunding.

Just to mention a few of the major changes that came in:

• Most workers with mental injuries from stress or burnout are now not eligible for the scheme
• The scheme now treats physical and mental injuries are treated differently. For mental injuries to be covered by the scheme, the injury must have been acquired predominantly in the course of employment. This is a higher threshold than physical injuries which states that employment must be a ‘significant contributing factor’. Before the changes the test was the same for all types of injury.
• To stay on the scheme beyond 130 weeks, an injured worker needs to have a diagnosed Whole Person Impairment (WPI) of more than 20%. This is an extremely high standard. An injured worker nearly has to be entirely incapacitated to meet it and it will see more workers kicked off the scheme.
• When WPI is calculated, it can only assess a physical or mental injury’s impairment separately. It does not combine the injuries despite considering the whole of person impairment - even if a mental injury occurred at the same time as a physical injury.

This is on top of an increase in the WorkCover Premiums paid by employers, to an average of 1.8% of total payroll. This rate hadn’t been increased since 2003, despite the increase in expensive and complex mental injuries. Just last week, it was announced that premiums would be frozen for a third year in a row.

The Government have chosen to make the scheme viable at the expense of injured workers. Injured workers need help, not punishment.

Based on the limited reports from Treasury, we assume that as many as 3,000 injured workers have been kicked off the scheme at 130 weeks because they can’t meet the Whole Person Impairment threshold.

We think women are being denied access to the scheme at a higher rate than men. This is probably due to the types of injuries women workers are more likely to see in their industries, which are predominantly white collar, and the risks most prevalent in those injuries, which are predominantly psychosocial.

Trades Hall has been running a survey of injured workers, to capture workers’ experiences with the WorkCover scheme, and their own stories of hardship. Some of the responses have been devastating.

Gabrielle was injured in 2022 and was diagnosed with a mental health condition. Last year, she was kicked off the scheme after 130 weeks because she couldn’t meet the 20% WPI test and had a history of anxiety. She still struggles maintaining personal relationships, keeping her home in order and still feels like she may never be able to go back to work.

Damon, a construction worker, said that being on WorkCover was so distressing, and that his insurance agent was so hostile, that he was considering moving back to his home country for a fresh start. He was tracked by the insurer and felt like he couldn’t even go to the dog park without being watched. Even today, after being kicked off the scheme, he still feels paranoid about being watched.

Selma worked in admin before she was injured at work. She was diagnosed with a mental injury. When the scheme changes came in, she was kicked off the scheme. She took the last of her paid leave from her employer, and then unpaid leave, and is still seeing her psychologist regularly. Selma is in her 60’s and is being forced into early retirement because she is not well enough to work and can’t retrain. It has put a huge strain on her health, and a big stress on her family. 

These are just some of the stories of how working people have been impacted by the changes to WorkCover.

To share your story, fill in the survey here: https://weareunion.typeform.com/WorkCover

Read our report on Injured Workers Day